Tweaking my drum sound for nobody else but me.

Man, I just love playing my drums, and I love playing with different new cymbals, snares, heads, etc. searching for "my sound". I have a combo that I just love playing right now, (subject to change when the next squirrel runs past, or the UV1 heads I ordered show up), but maybe I'm just being too self indulgent. I'm wondering how many of you stick with a sound that works for you vs. experimenting with new / different combos?

Never thought about it much but I try and spend as little time as possible messing with gear. As a result I often go longer than I should between tunings and have played the same cymbals for a long time.

I'd rather be playing. I tend to mess with things only when they hinder my ability to be expressive.

mike d said:

Man, I just love playing my drums, and I love playing with different new cymbals, snares, heads, etc. searching for "my sound". I have a combo that I just love playing right now, (subject to change when the next squirrel runs past, or the UV1 heads I ordered show up), but maybe I'm just being too self indulgent. I'm wondering how many of you stick with a sound that works for you vs. experimenting with new / different combos?

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I found Benny Greb's Video Checking out Different Sounds to be interesting and informative for tweaking sounds you might not normally be aware of.
https://youtu.be/J0pKWox-j5Q

I love tweaking drums and sounds more than actually playing. I'm constantly messing with things live and in studio.

mike d said:

Man, I just love playing my drums, and I love playing with different new cymbals, snares, heads, etc. searching for "my sound". I have a combo that I just love playing right now, (subject to change when the next squirrel runs past, or the UV1 heads I ordered show up), but maybe I'm just being too self indulgent. I'm wondering how many of you stick with a sound that works for you vs. experimenting with new / different combos?

Click to expand...

I'm tweaking my sound all the time since I bought my own 16 track audio interface.

For example I have 2 sets of cymbals:

Zildjian avedis cymbals sound excellent, but not that great for rock
Paiste Signature cymbals sound excellent, but not that good for jazz/fusion

Playing around recently, the Paiste's have a huge shimmering sound that really fills the mix in a rock song whereas the zildjians sounded a bit dry.

I also had a stack of a 20" sabian china and one of my old sabian HH 13" bright hats - didn't sound too good and not much sustain, change the hat to a 14" Paiste 2000 (so that it trashes over the bow of the china) and it sounds epic.

I love the chick sound of my Paiste 2000 hi hats but when they get loose they are a bit trashy so I've swapped them out for the Paiste 13" dry heavy hats and put the avedis 13" mastersounds as my loose auxilliary hats.

Basically i mix and match all the time. I recently bought a Paiste 2000 ride and 14" crash - The ride just sounds like a dead version of my signature but the 14" crash is a little beauty that I like to ride on.

So yeah, keep buying new cymbals and keep swapping em out. You have inspired me to spend my friday on ebay so thanks :-D

Never thought about this much. My sound mainly has to do with getting the drums to sing as well as they can, so I can make them fit into situations I may be in. So that kinda limits me to making them "low and phat", or "high and rings", the music kinda dictates to me what I make them sound like. I'm not sure I ever tweaked them just for tweaking' sake.

It's my hobby when I'm relaxing at home, I like to watch some terrible movie and tweak and tune my drums. Mostly snares although I have been working on this Rogers bass drum that has been giving me trouble. I love trying different drums and snares.

The real sad reality of all this is that I tune just about every drum to sound the same. Every snare is cranked to hell, every bass drum is tuned up nice and boomy, every tom is tuned as resonant as I can get it.

Yesterday during practice I switched snares twice. They sounded pretty much the same but I really had fun doing it.

Not really interested in the gear side, as long as they dont sound like cardboard boxes or bin lids.

@JohnoWorld, @Red Menace, @ineedaclutch
I'm glad I'm not alone. I just got some new UV1 heads. They look awesome. I hope they sound as good as they look. More tweaking to come...